Originally published at Noche UFC 306 Reaction & Business Notes | POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: The Wellness Policy
Tuesday: upNXT
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: MCU L8R – Agatha All Along premiere (POST Wrestling Café)
Thursday: Rewind-A-Wai – WWE Raw, Dec. 6, 2004 (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course (POST Wrestling Café)
Today’s audio news update includes all of today’s stories from John Pollock and a Noche UFC report by Jack Wannan for Double Double & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café.
Leave us your feedback for this week’s Rewind-A-Wai on WWE Raw from December 6, 2004, headlined by Trish Stratus vs. Lita.
POST Wrestling’s review of Noche UFC with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte, plus an interview with Robert Pearson on the live experience at Sphere in Las Vegas.
Stephanie Chase is the guest on The N.W.A. Podcast this month and clocks in at a cool six hours.
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw is at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon featuring the return of CM Punk after the attack by Drew McIntyre two weeks ago. The following matches have been announced:
*World Tag Team Titles: Finn Balor & JD McDonagh © vs. New Day
*Damian Priest vs. Dominik Mysterio
*Braun Strowman vs. Bronson Reed
*Natalya vs. Zoey Starks
*Sheamus vs. Pete Dunne
**The Monday Night Football game between the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles is airing on ESPN and won’t be broadcast on ABC simultaneously.
**For SmackDown’s viewership in Canada, this past Friday’s episode averaged 334,700 viewers and 130,200 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. The network also aired a replay at 11 p.m. ET, which drew 55,800 viewers and 44,600 in the demo. SmackDown should receive a noticeable increase as the show was previously simulcast on the Fox affiliate, which was not counted towards Canadian viewership. Now, you can only watch the show on Sportsnet 360 with the move to the USA Network in the U.S.
The live airing of SmackDown ranked #3 among sports that night behind the Toronto Blue Jays vs. St. Louis Cardinals and CFL football but was #2 in the demo and only 5,000 viewers behind the Jays’ game for first place. WWE Main Event aired at 10 p.m. ET and averaged 123,000 viewers and 51,300 in the demo, which is enormous for that show due to the massive lead-in from SmackDown.
**CMLL presented its 91st Aniversario card at Arena Mexico on Friday and was highlighted by an incredible atmosphere for the four-way Mask vs. Mask match where Euforia revealed his identity. The match lasted 36 minutes with Valiente and Esfinge eliminated and left Hechicero and Euforia as the final two to decide who would be unmasked. Hechicero submitted Euforia, who built up to the dramatic unmasking and revealed himself to be José Leobardo Moreno León. Euforia debuted in 1990 as El Soberano Jr. and was changed to Euforia seventeen years ago in CMLL. The heat was off the charts and one of the more dramatic matches you’ll see this year. The argument was whether this should have gone on last, but the promotion went with the name value of Chris Jericho and Mistico, who had to follow, and it was a tough assignment after the emotional release from the prior presentation. Mistico won with La Mistica but didn’t seem happy afterward. There was a post-match angle where Orange Cassidy sought revenge for an attack earlier in the night by Jericho & Big Bill and he saved Mistico. Cassidy put his sunglasses on Mistico and left. For whatever reason, Tony Schiavone promoted this as a win by Jericho on Collision.
**Lionsgate Films released “The Killer’s Game” this past weekend starring Dave Bautista and featuring Drew McIntyre. The film only grossed $2.6 million with a per-screen average of less than $1,000 across approximately 2,600 theatres. The movie currently has a 38% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. The top movies at the box office this past weekend were Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($51.6 million), Speak No Evil ($11.5), and Deadpool & Wolverine ($5.2).
**Sukeban will run its first show in London, England on October 10 with a card scheduled for York Hall. The five-match card will feature Commander Nakajima vs. Sareee Bomb for the Sukeban World Championship, Rina Yamashita vs. Midnight Player vs. Babyface in a Gang Warfare match, Saki Bimi & Maya Mamushi vs. Bingo & Atomic Banshee, Stray Cat vs. Ichigo Sayaka, and Crush Yuu & Supersonic vs. King Konami & X (a new member of Dangerous Liaisons).
**NJPW’s Road to Destruction tour resumes on Tuesday in Hokkaido at the Asahikawa Gymnasium. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji face HENARE, Jeff Cobb, Great O-Khan & Jakob Austin Young in the main event. The tour continues Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and next Monday before the Destruction in Kobe show on September 29.
**Satoshi Kojima will defend the MLW World Heavyweight Championship against Ultimo Guerrero at Slaughterhouse on October 4 in St. Petersburg, Florida, and stream live on YouTube.
**The latest lineup for NXT on Tuesday includes Lyra Valkyria & Tatum Paxley vs. Wendy Choo & Rosemary, Jacy Jayne vs. Lola Vice, Cedric Alexander & Je’Von Evans vs. Tavion Heights & Myles Borne, Eddy Thorpe vs. Ashante Thee Adonis, and Brooks Jensen vs. Dion Lennox.
**Mike Mooneyham at The Post and Courier has a story on the late Gary Hart.
**The TKO stock closed at $117.33 on Monday.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC pulled off an incredible production at the Sphere in Las Vegas this past Saturday while setting its new all-time gate record. Much was made of the ambitious undertaking, exorbitant costs, quality of the card, and ticket prices but in the end, it was a memorable spectacle highlighted by two of the best fights of the year.
The show was going to be weighted on its presentation over the fights and in that department, I thought it was a home run. Once the pay-per-view began, and the Sphere portion took over with the various worlds and full usage of the screen and graphics, it was a mesmerizing series of scenes that topped even the top-level PRIDE, K-1, and WrestleMania productions.
The last figure thrown out by Dana White was production costs of $20 million, and repeatedly stated this was, “One and done”. The UFC received a mass infusion from Saudi Arabia with Riyadh Season paying for the naming rights along with the most sponsorships for any UFC event. Coupling those streams with the ESPN+ licensing and the live gate and it was still going to be a profitable venture. The natural question is a future event in the venue and it’s hard to watch Saturday’s show and not see a return down the road. Beyond the enormous cost of running Sphere, UFC does have an exclusive deal with MGM and got a one-night “hall pass” due to MGM providing the T-Mobile Arena to the Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga fight. If not for the boxing fight, UFC would have been staging this event at T-Mobile.
Nick Khan was among many executives from the industry in attendance along with Bob Iger of Disney and most interestingly, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
The $22 million gate that UFC reported tops the previous record of $17.7 set in November 2016 for the first show at Madison Square Garden featuring Eddie Alvarez vs. Conor McGregor. With dynamic pricing and an escalation in demand, it could be a record that is broken as ticket pricing has reached unheard-of levels in the UFC. There is already a reality where some fans will only consume this product on their screen and will never be able to justify the price for the company’s major events. WWE is not far behind with its PLEs in arena-sized venues and with further cutbacks to house shows, an elimination of smaller markets having access to the product in person.
It is unknown if we will see any pay-per-view figures for UFC 306 as there has never been more curiosity behind the production of a UFC event including the first trip to Yas Island during the pandemic. I don’t know if the Sphere curiosity was enough for fans to spend $80 U.S. but it’s not like the main event wasn’t a major fight as Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili were a very strong main event and the top three fights were all pay-per-view level fights, although the championship fights were not great. The fight that stole the show was the lightweight contest on the main card between Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber, who had an ultra-close fight for the first two rounds and a war during round three, which was among the best rounds of the year. Ribovics won by decision and earned the Fight of the Night bonus. It seemed like a lock that Joshua Van and Edgar Chairez would be the best fight on the card, but it was surpassed, and those two fights alone made this an excellent show.
**The Canadian viewership figures for the Noche UFC prelims were 75,000 and 26,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. There was a consistent production issue I encountered where SN aired longer commercials than the allotted break time between rounds, so SN would return fifty seconds into the next round and it happened multiple times.
**The UFC confirmed the long-drawn-out news that Jon Jones will defend the UFC heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden on November 16. The fight was originally slated for last year’s card at The Garden, but Jones tore his pectoral and has been on the sidelines for the past year. Miocic has not fought since March 2021 when he was knocked out by Francis Ngannou. While they will market this around Miocic being the greatest heavyweight, this fight is happening well beyond the general fan’s interest and the majority have voiced their opinion that interim champion Tom Aspinall should be fighting Jones rather than seeing the promotion hold onto this Jones vs. Miocic fight. It is a near guarantee that Miocic will retire after this fight and just turned 42 last month. Jones has not competed since March 2023 and there are still questions about his future and whether the Aspinall fight will even take place. While the criticism should be high in the lead-up, the UFC is on fire and given the location and main event, it is still going to generate huge business, but I’d say the exact same thing if it was Jones fighting Aspinall and probably be even bigger because of the nature of the young star coming for Jones.
The co-feature at UFC 309 will be a five-round lightweight contest between Michael Chandler and Charles Oliveira in a rematch from May 2021. It represents Chandler moving on from the constantly delayed showdown with Conor McGregor and placing Chandler on ice for two years including a coaching stint on Ultimate Fighter. Chandler and Oliveira fought for the vacant 155-pound title at UFC 262 with Oliveira winning by TKO in the second round of an incredible fight.
**Dana White’s Contender Series on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET will feature Elijah Smith (6-1) vs. Aaron Tau (8-0), Arthur Lopes (6-1) vs. Tallison Teixeira (6-0), Joey Hart (6-1) vs. Benjamin Bennett (6-1), Ateba Gautier (5-1) vs. Yura Naito (6-0), and Ahmad Hassanzada (11-3) vs. Dylan Mantello (8-3).
**Brian Campbell of CBS Sports interviews Max Holloway on his UFC 308 main event with Ilia Topuria for the featherweight title.
**There is no UFC event this weekend with the promotion returning on September 28 with a Fight Night from the Accor Arena in Paris, France, which has been an electric atmosphere for past shows for UFC, Bellator, and WWE. The main event sees Benoit Saint-Denis (13-2) taking on Renato Moicano (19-5-1).
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THE N.W.A. PODCAST
The Advocates are joined by Stephanie Chase to discuss MCMG going to WWE, MVP, All Out, Bad Blood predictions, and more.
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UFC 306 REVIEW
John Pollock and Eric Marcotte review UFC 306 feat. Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili and Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko.
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COLLISION COURSE
John Siino & Kate From MTL are back this week to discuss AEW Collision featuring the return of Yuka Sakazaki who faces Serena Deeb, FTR vs GYV, and TNT Champion Jack Perry vs Christopher Daniels.
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REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
Wai Ting & Neal Flanagan review WWE SmackDown’s USA Network premiere featuring Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa in a cage match for the WWE title.
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POLLOCK & TING: TALK
In this edition of TALK, John Pollock & Wai Ting drink coffee in the Pollock backyard as they discuss their latest adventures in parenthood, the types of people they were in high school, and the 2024 United States presidential election.
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